No more poor vision: Belmonte supports comprehensive eye-care program for QC residents

Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte has stepped up efforts to address her constituents suffering from blindness and poor vision.

Belmonte announced the passage of Ordinance No. Sangguniang Panglungspd-2689 instituting a comprehensive eye-care program for the city’s residents.

The ordinance gives priority to poor, visually-impaired residents of the city who could not afford the basic eye-care treatment and ophthalmological services that are commonly expensive in private hospitals and eye clinics.

“Blindness or severe visual impairment is usually avoidable thus we should make essential eye care available to all, especially to the less privileged,” the lady politiko said.

Citing the data of the Department of Health, Belmonte said 332,150 Filipinos are bilaterally blind, while the current number of persons with bilateral low vision has already reached 2,179,733 as of 2017.

She added that cataracts remain the leading cause of blindness globally followed by glaucoma and age-related macular degeneration as the secondary causes.

“With a comprehensive eye-care program, we aim to strengthen awareness on the importance of proper eye care and promote the prevention of avoidable blindness,” she said.

The comments posted on this site do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of management and owner of POLITICS.com.ph. We reserve the right to exclude comments that we deem to be inconsistent with our editorial standards.